First band you ever saw - C or D?

On the other hand 'though, as far as I can remember I've always enjoyed going to gigs with very few exceptions, all of which are etched painfully on my memory; so that would tend to suggest "classic"!

Even the first time I saw 'em (at The Marquee in London early '79) they had a support band.... if my memory serves me correctly it was a band called The Gas!

Aaaaah, of course there was that tour (for Faith IIRC) when they went on the road with a film called Carnage Visors (as far as I can remember it looked as if it had been assembled in 5 minutes from the discarded bits of an aborted animation project by a retarded child from a spectacularly backward Eastern Bloc primary school; although it may actually have been worse than that) instead of a support band.....

First non-local band I saw were The Prodigy. I got off with a girl and later her best friend, and the best friend's much older boyfriend walked into the room and belted me round the head. So they were great.

LOL! That reminds me of The Stranglers (supported by The Dictators) Reading Top Rank, 1977.

...mine was, ahem, Paul Weller at Finsbury Park. In the bad bad dadrock days. My brother took me: I must have been all of eleven, in an audience of huuuge burly thirtysomething men packed so tight that at some point the tectonic crowd movement meant they all started falling over. Onto ME. And did any one of them lend a hand to help up this little girl they'd just landed onto? 'Course not.

Ahd the first band on the bill, if we're counting them, were TC:Hug, who were like a more shite OCS, so I feel pretty secure in saying DUD dud dud duddetty dud. Though the Bluetones were great (which possibly explains why I didn't vow to never go to another gig again, which probably would have been the sensible reaction).

Glass Spider mania! Bowie coming out of a spider's belly! In a chair! 20 meters above the stage! Singing into a telephone!

At 15 yrs, I was deeply impressed.

< Gasp! > Is such a thing really possible?

Unless you could going to SPAC to see Philip Glass composing in residence when I was 13. That really did have a lasting effect on me, you know, all that repetition and drone and all...

In fact, even though my next show was better (Rush 1979), and my third show was better than that (The Knack, 1979), it wasn't until my fourth show that I was really hooked (Talking Heads "Remain in Light" tour).

First real gig was Gaye Bikers on Acid I was about 13/14, and my lasting memory of that is getting in serious shit for coming home drunk and about 2 hours after I should have done.
I didn't own any of their records then and I don't now, it just happened that they were one of the biggest bands ever to play Burnley Mechanics at the time.

First REAL show:
March 5th, 1984
Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto
Duran Duran
support: The Payola$ (!)
They filmed the video for 'The Reflex' that night.

It is, and always shall be, classic.

Support acts were far better. Blind Melon and The Cult.

Aerosmith headlining
Dokken opening

St. Paul Civic Center, 1987 sometime

My friends dad took us because we were too young to drive. He told us to keep our wallets in our front pockets. There was a large group of Native Americans sitting behind us that must have taken a bus from a reservation. I remember being impressed by how loud and drunk they were (they were doing alot of "war whooping" I guess you would call it) I bought a t-shirt. Aerosmith was brilliant, as they only played a Angel, Dude Looks Like a Lady, and Rag Doll from Permanent Vacation and then tons of great 70s stuff.

First big band I saw was Turbonegro, I think. Mixed affair; 'twas around 1996 or so. Some people fluff their pillows before going to bed.

Classic.

But first real concert I ever paid to see and went on my own - The Who. Little Steven was the opener. It was great at the time - chances are it actually sucked. But we'll call that classic.

http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGCOVERS/music/cover200/dre500/e528/e52848mv18p.jpg

First club-type show, though .. hmmm.. that's a tough one; I honestly don't remember. It may have been Soundgarden in like '89.

First club gig: something at City Gardens in Trenton, NJ. GWAR, with Mudhoney, the Fluid and Steelpole Bathtub opening.

My first club show was a local PR ska band by the name of Pies Negros, around '99 my senior year (yeah, I started late)They were actually pretty good, well at least I thought at the time. Right now I can't remember anything of their music and I haven't heard from them since then.

My first concert was Puya in '99 senior year, Puya main act and ANIMAL opening. At COliseo Roberto Clemente, San Juan, PR. It was pretty good, and I basically remember it for the nostalgia (It all started back then!)Puya was at their prime, before they became the pathetic piece of crap they are now. Back then they played "Fake", which is their best song. Now they don't play it, cuz they've become fakes themselves.

David Lee Roth, Poison opening
Brendan Byrne Arena, Meadowlands, NJ
Fall 1987
Classic.

NO SHAME! NO SHAME AT ALL!

The first proper live gig I went to, was a local gig by a band called Dustball, a band that I still love. It's just a shame that the band seem to be slightly scared of me now. ah well.

After that I didn't see another band till I ran away to New York the next year and went to my first club show--Suicide and the Real Kids at CBGB. My friend got his head shoved into the toilet in the men's room by Alpo from the Real Kids because he'd been heckling them the night before. Good times!

By myself (I was twelve) would've been Graham Parker and The Rumour. Not as classic, I guess, but not outright dud neither...

Well, hardly.... :-)

I also find endearing the people who's gig going seemed, like mine, to commence with Britpop (Blur, Rootjoose (?), dadrock Weller)

And then one or two perhaps too cool to be true entries...

This is all probably remarkably telling and would make the basis for a great and quite interesting thesis.

But its much more interesting working out people's ages.

God, how I really envy you. That has to be one of the best lineups ever! And when they were all in their prime! How I hate having been born too late.

"Puya are still around? I liked the two records of theirs I heard"
Their first record is classic, but I personally don't like their last one. It sounds too nu-metallish.
They've broken up, but every now and then they play back home in PR. I've seen 'em like three times. But they're just washed up. And the guitarist has a new band which is a la nu-metal.

The first show I saw unaccompanied was The Cult/Bonham/Tora Tora at age 15. In retrospect, dudder.

first arena show was R.E.M. and Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians at Louisville Gardens, March 1989 (first show of the Green tour). Great show, and I like both bands (but don't listen to 'em much anymore).

First arena show (1982)
The Who
Opening: The Clash

And I went to an Up with People show at my local high school and got them to autograph their album. I thought they were really sexy, the guys and the girls. I don't know, the girls had miniskirts and the guys had turtlenecks, it seemed very sexy to me at 9.

The following summer was the first paying concert I went, REM at Wembley Arena. This should have been great, but a)I forgot my glasses and didn't see anything, b)My parents took me there and watched it with me which is not terribly cool when you're 16.

The first gig I actually went to where I had to pay and didn't have my family around me was January 1990, Lush supported by Th' Faith Healers at a tiny place called The Richmond in Brighton. I have fond memories of this one, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it a classic.

My first concert was Devo's show at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, same tour, the day after Radio City. And Alex, you took the words out of my mouth. I was not only amazed to be in the same room as Devo, but also a couple thousand of their fans. I was used to hearing "Devo" as an insult at school.

Before that: the Village People (at the zoo) and Stevie Wonder.

First paid-for one was Deacon Blue, at the Black Isle Show (farmers thing in a big tent outside Inverness) round about when Raintown came out. It was ace.

Next one after that, Aztec Camera (with special guest Edwyn Collins) which was unutterably fantastic.

Pogues, Pixies sometime around then as well.

S

first club show was the alleycats, the last, and the zippers at the troubador in 79. that was really good.